Microsoft Speech Platform

PHONETICALPHABET

PHONETICALPHABET specifies the types of phonetic alphabet supported by the Microsoft Speech Platform.

<pre IsFakePre="true" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <strong>typedef enum PHONETICALPHABET</strong> <strong>{</strong> <strong> PA_Ipa,</strong> <strong> PA_Ups,</strong> <strong> PA_Sapi,</strong> <strong>} PHONETICALPHABET;</strong> </pre>

Elements

• PA_Ipa
  Indicates the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). A system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet, devised as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language.
• PA_Ups
  Indicates the Universal Phone Set (UPS). A machine-readable phonetic alphabet, created by Microsoft, which is based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
• PA_Sapi
  Indicates the SAPI Phone Set. A legacy phonetic alphabet that was used to define pronuciations for the seven origianal Microsoft languages.

Remarks

A phonetic alphabet contains combinations of letters, numbers, and characters which are known as "phones". A phone represents a discrete sound in a spoken language. Phones are used to create phonetic spellings that determine how a word should be pronounced to be recognized or spoken. The Microsoft Speech Platform supports three phonetic alphabets:

• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). You can you can use phones from the IPA to specify custom pronunciations in grammars that conform to the Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS) Version 1.0, in prompts that conform to the Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.0, and in PLS lexicons that conform to the Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS) Version 1.0. IPA pronunciations can be used for any language the Speech Platform supports. However, the psz parameter of ISpGrammarBuilder::AddWordTransition accepts only UPS or SAPI phones when adding words in Display/Lexical/Pronunciation (DLP) format.
• Universal Phone Set (UPS). You can use phones from the UPS to specify custom pronunciations for any language in XML-format SRGS grammars, SSML prompts, or PLS lexicons, and in the psz parameter of ISpGrammarBuilder::AddWordTransition. UPS pronunciations can be used for any language the Speech Platform supports.
• Speech API (SAPI) Phone Set. Though still supported, use of the SAPI Phone Set has been deprecated. We recommend that you use the UPS for programmatic grammars, and UPS or IPA to define word pronunciations in XML-format SRGS grammars, SSML prompts, or PLS lexicons.